Life is complicated. Even the simplest cell has to deal with continual changes in temperature, pressure, food, and anything else the environment wants to throw at it. After millions of years adapting to every kind of condition, it is hard to determine what genes are actually driving the cell and which are only add-ons, like power windows and air-conditioning. Biophysicist Albert Libchaber and colleagues at Rockefeller University have been getting closer over the past few years to identifying what are the bare-minimum components of a cell, and this month they announce new progress.